, and the 5th Lancers. If Kruger or Joubert had then allowed the
Boers encamped on the Free State border to have their own way, no one
can say what might have happened. Our force would have been outnumbered
at least four to one, and probably more. In event of disaster the Boers
would have seized an immense quantity of military stores accumulated in
the camp, and at the railway station. What is worse, they would have
isolated the still smaller force lately thrown forward to Dundee, so as
to break the strong defensive position of the Biggarsberg, which cuts
off the north of Natal, and can only be traversed by three difficult
passes. Dundee was just as much threatened from the east frontier beyond
the Buffalo River, where the Transvaal Boers of the Utrecht and Vryheid
district have been mustered in strong force for nearly a fortnight now.
With our two advanced posts "lapped up" (the phrase is a little musty
here), our stores lost, and our reputation among the Dutch and native
populations entirely ruined, the campaign would have begun badly.

For the Boers it was a fine strategic opportunity, and they were
perfectly aware of that. But "the Old Man," as they affectionately call
the President, had his own prudent reasons for refusing it. "Let the
enemy fire first," he says, like the famous Frenchman, and so far he has
been able to hold the most ardent of the encamped burghers in check. "If
he should not be able!" we kept saying. We still say it morning and
evening, but the pinch of the danger is passed. Last Thursday night the
1st Devons and the 19th Hussars began to arrive and the crisis ended.
Yesterday before daybreak half the Gordons came. We have now a mountain
battery and three batteries of field artillery, the 19th Hussars (the
18th having gone forward to Dundee), besides the 5th Lancers (the "Irish
Lancers"), who are in faultless condition, and a considerable mixed
force of the Natal Volunteers. Of these last, the Carbineers are perhaps
the best, and generally serve as scouts towards the Free State frontier.
But all have good repute as horsemen, marksmen, and guides, and at
present they are the force which the Boers fear most. They are split up
into several detachments--the Border Mounted Rifles, the Natal Mounted
Rifles (from Durban), the Imperial Light Horse, the Natal Police, and
the Umvoti Mounted Rifles, who are chiefly Dutch. Then of infantry there
are the Natal Royal Rifles (only about 150 strong), the Durban Lig